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GI crusader Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, author of The GI factor, has received a Queen's Birthday honour for her research into human nutrition and as a supporter of people with a hearing impairment.

Brand-Miller, who has been appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM), has been spent much of her career advocating that some carbohydrate-based foods take longer to break down into glucose in the blood, forming the basis of the glycemic index (GI).

She says this has implications for people with diabetes who have trouble controlling blood sugar levels.

"The world is gradually coming round to the idea that all [carbohydrate-based] foods should be low GI," says Brand-Miller.

But what is now widely accepted was initially highly controversial and Brand-Miller says there have been times when she's been 'knocked down' and humiliated.

"I was a 'redneck' doing provocative work, because I was saying low fat foods might not all be as good as we think ... it was not all smooth sailing," she says.

Brand-Miller says her interest in nutrition began as a child. As a five-year-old, she remembers her parents and grandparents implying that there was a connection between what you ate and how you felt. "I grew up in a household where good food was considered to be important for your health," she says.

In her first job as a lecturer at the University of Sydney, Brand-Miller analysed the nutrient composition of Aboriginal bush foods.

"We looked at the protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre content and built a database of the native human diet," she says.

Notably, these foods tended to be low GI and this led Brand-Miller to question the role of food in human evolution and the prevalence of conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

Throughout her career she has a prolific author, having published more than 200 research papers and written numerous books.

Little miracles

Her award also recognises her support of people with a hearing impediment.

Brand-Miller gradually lost her hearing during her teenage years, but has since received two cochlear implants.

"I am extremely lucky that Graham Clark was an Australian and that he started developing and commercialising it [the cochlear implant] at just the right time for me. They are just little miracles," she says.

Brand-Miller says she would not be able to do what she does today without them, and she now mentors adults considering a cochlear implant.

Despite turning 60 next year, she is not thinking about retirement.

"I feel so intellectually stimulated by everything that is happening in my field. The future for nutrition is better than ever," says Brand-Miller. "I feel we have reached a tipping point where early intervention is becoming the buzz word."

"At the high levels of academia, there is much more respect for lifestyle interventions," she says.

Brand-Miller's research now extends to the study of 'metabolic programming': the effects of parent's diet on a developing human foetus.